Product Description

The mad doctor has cooked up something evil in Reiner Knizia's Poison, a clever strategy card game. Players choose a potion card from their hand to add to one of three colored cauldrons, being careful not to let the pot go over a total value of 13.

The player who causes the cauldron to go over 13 must take all of the cards within it, trying to avoid taking a potion mixed with poison. Be the player with either the most or none of any potion and you're safe -- otherwise take the risk of receiving a deadly dose!

Product Reviews

Poison (Playroom Entertainment, 2005 - Reiner Knizia) is possibly one
of the more overproduced games that I own. Really, the game only
needs a small deck of cards, but the addition of three huge cardboard
cauldrons add some flair and make a large box necessary. With Reiner
Knizia himself on the front, smirking joyously as he mixes venomous
concoctions, the game has a slightly evil overtone. What kind of game
is this?

The answer is that it's a fun card filler. Not everyone that I've
played it with has enjoyed it, and I see that some folk online are
also rather antagonistic to the game. But there's something about the
game, it has simple, easy gameplay that appeals to a lot of people. A
group of teens, when given the game, will play over and over until I
tell them to stop. It's a mindless diversion (although not entirely
random) that just feels so simple and fun filled that I find myself
constantly throwing it on the "pile o' games" for excursions. And
that's why I must give it thumbs up.

Three large cauldron tiles are placed on the table, and then fifty
cards are shuffled and evenly dealt to each player. Cards are either
one of three different types of potions (red, blue, or purple - values
"1", "2", "4", "5", or "7"), or poison cards (green - value "4"). One
player begins, and then play proceeds clockwise around the table. ON
a player's turn, they simply play one of their cards face up onto one
of the cauldrons. The first player can play a card to any of the
three cauldrons, but after that, all players may only play a card into
a cauldron that contains cards of the same color. Also, once a
cauldron has a color, cards of that color may be placed there only.

A poison card can be placed in any pot, even one that is empty - no
cauldron is ever considered to be "green". If a player places a card
in a cauldron that causes the total sum there to exceed thirteen, then
they must take all the cards lying there and place them face down in
front of themselves. Play continues until all of the cards have been
played. At this point, all cards are revealed. The player who has
the most cards of each of the three main colors may discard all the
cards they have of that color. Players then score one point for each
card they have and two points for each Poison card they have. The
amounts are recorded, and another round begins. At the end of the
game (one round for each player), the player with the lowest score
wins the game!

Some comments on the game…

1.)Components: There's no question that Poison is an overproduced
game - it's simply a deck of cards and three huge cauldrons rattling
around in a medium sized box. I don't mind, though, as the cauldrons
- thick black cardboard cutouts - are an attractive feature that get
folk interested in the game. The cards, with a vinyl finish, are high
quality, and each color potion is also in a different shaped bottle,
to help distinguish them.

2.) Rules: The rules are on four, full-color pages, with a lot of
illustrations and examples, including a detailed explanation of
scoring. The game is very easy to understand, I've taught it to many
groups of people - they simply need to know about "13", and that the
person with the most cards of a color can exclude them from their
scoring. I've taught the game to teenagers with great success.

3.) Strategy: As much as I enjoy the game, the strategy is really
rather obvious. Players simply attempt to avoid going over "13" in
any of the pots; and if they do, they should try to always take cards
of that color, so as to have the most. One thing that the game does
have that I find interesting is that players have all their cards at
the beginning, so they have complete knowledge of what they can play
throughout the game. It's quite possible to pull off a round in which
a player scores no points at all, but that's more luck than anything else.

4.) Luck: Some folk find the game frustrating; especially when it
seems that every time it is their turn, they have no choice but to
take one of the groups of cards on the table. Other players
occasionally get the hand in which it seems like they simply couldn't
take a cauldron's worth of cards if they wanted to! I don't mind this
luck, because the game is meant to be light and easy.

5.) Fun Factor: This is the most important point about Poison,
methinks. Even though it's a very light, simple game, and the choices
are fairly obvious (although sometimes a player has to choose whether
to take a cauldron or not - if they're going for the most cards of a
color), the game is a lot of fun. Playing a card that forces another
player to take a cauldron is deliciously enjoyable, especially when
there are one or more poison cards in the mix. It's one of those card
games that everyone simply sits back and tosses a card in the middle
and can have fellowship at the same time. Perhaps it's a gateway game
for Uno players?

That being said, I do realize that there are folk who just will find
the game frustrating and luck-filled. I easily can see these points
but ignore them because of my enjoyment of the game. It's hard to
clarify exactly what I like about Poison, but its ease of play is
probably the biggest factor. It allows you to confront your opponents
in a laid-back way, and the high quality components certainly don't
hurt. When I have fifteen minutes to kill, Poison is one of the
better ways to go. (Forgive the unintentional pun).

Tom Vasel
"Real men play board games"

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